by timspauwen on January 29, 2010
AJU has published an overview of western jewelry history written by its administrators Alain van Acker† and Tim Spauwen. From the Classical era and its influences until the fifties, it’s all there.
We want to stress the fact that AJU is a user based project and we invite you all to browse, read and comment AJU’s content. In order to leave feedback at AJU you have to complete a 10 second registration which gains you user status. When you are logged on as a user you can edit the discussion pages which are placed behind each content page. Simply click on the discussion tab, hit ‘edit’ and type away.
We hope to see you online,
the warmest regards,
the AJU administration team
by timspauwen on January 6, 2010
by timspauwen on October 29, 2009
In more then one place one can read about the Middle Ages being the ‘Dark Ages’, a time where intellectual progress stagnated, even regressed. Knowledge became the possession of the church and anybody disagreeing with the catholic dogma was prosecuted. Artwork took a fall compared to the antique world of the Romans and Greeks. But, is this the whole truth? Were the Middle Ages a completely uninteresting period in which no innovations took place and no beautiful jewelry was produced?
Find the answer on AJU
by timspauwen on October 9, 2009
October 1985 saw the very first Intergem being held in the tennis hall of the gemtown. Idar Oberstein had been a gem cutting centre for over 500 years already and a large gem- and jewelry industry had evolved. The area around the town was the source of nicely colored agates and the presence of the Idar bach (=creek) provided water power. This combination resulted in a gemcutting centre situated at the two townships of Idar and Oberstein.
Although the Portugese were the first to discover the gemstone deposits of Brazil during the 16th and 17th centuries it was the German immigrants that moved to Brasil in the second half of the 19th century that recognized the potential of the deposits. Stones were sent to Idar-Oberstein and it didn’t take long for the German gem dealers to set-up offices in Brasil. A strong gem trading tradition between Idar and the gem bearing areas of Brasil was born which boosted economy in the German gem centre. This relation seems to be intact to this day judging by the large amount of Brazilian beryl and topaz that was displayed at the fair.
The celebration of 25 years of Intergem falls together with the joyful event of moving into a new home. The past 24 edition were held at the town’s tennishall but this year the brand new fairgrounds just outside the Oberstein part of town provided the fair with a worthy home.
Intergem’s young new manager Kai-Uwe Hille is proud as a peacock. It took the organisation 4 years to get the state and town to cough up the money (close to 8 million euros) and build the fair hall. The idea is to organize all kinds of events in the building. A gem industry technology fair called Gemtec will be held in May 2010 for the very first time. Further concerts, musicals and a variety of fairs and other venues will be able to find an excellent haven in the new building that has been built on the site of a former US army base.
Each and every exhibitor on fair that I interviewed said the very same thing: “we love the new hall, it makes a very special fair even more professional looking”.
Read the full article on AJU
by timspauwen on September 8, 2009
Although subject to some serious discontinuation several times, the styles used in Greek jewelry from 3000 BC to the inauguration of the Roman Empire, which marked the end of the Greek world, are to be recognized as a clear evolution. From the Minoans to the Mycenaeans and onto the ‘foreign’ Phoenicians for safe keeping over darker times, back to its cradle when the air cleared and then from Classical to Hellenistic, the fantastic gold- and silver smithing techniques travelled through time to reach us today.
read more on AJU: Greek jewelry
by timspauwen on August 5, 2009
It was a nice walk through ‘Villa Borghese’, a cool park situated to the North of the historic city centre of Rome. Our legs had brought us to the museum called ‘Villa Giulia’ to see the Castellani Collection. 
The museum is situated in a beautiful villa that used to be the summer home to Pope Julius the third. Anticipating gold and gemstones only, I was somewhat startled to enter the museum and see a hallway full of pottery, artifacts that I had familiarized myself with two days earlier while visiting the Vatican Museum. A quick look on the museum ticket I was just handed solved my puzzle: I just entered ‘Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia’ - the national Etruscan museum. I’d been under the assumption that the museum was home to products from the Castellani workshop only. Wrong…
Villa Giulia holds the most extensive collection of Etruscan artifacts in the world. Pottery, metalwork, sculptures, fragments of buildings and the like, it is fascinating to see how these people lived, built and died. A large portion of the items on display is coming from tombs. The Etruscans must have been under the firm believe that there was a long life after death. The amount of gear a deceased would carry with him in the grave is impressive. I learned that the famed ‘Roman arch’, the feature that enabled higher structures to be built, was in fact a perfect copy of the Etruscans’ arch. Several hundreds of years before the ancient Roman civilisation came to it’s glory the Etruscans had already figured out many of the Greek ’secrets to society’.
The Etruscans had acted as a sub station for a lot of things that I, until then, had pictured to have flown over straight from the Greeks to the Romans. Situated just north of Rome, the center of the Etruscan civilisation had provided as a hub for knowledge and acted as a source for inspiration to the Roman architects and artists.
Amongst all the grave gifts were, of course, many jewelry articles. Turning into one room eight large cabinets were lined up along the walls. From a distance I recognized one of the pieces to be a Castallani brooch with it’s fine micromosaic. Quick glances towards the other cabinets proved that there were 2 cabinets with Castellani made items and 6 with original Etruscan jewels.
The Castellani displays showed a nice collection of work produced by the three generations of goldsmiths this family produced during the years 1814 and 1927. Unique micromosaics, granulation in all possible forms and perfect filigree kept us occupied for over an hour in front of those two cabinets alone. The Etruscan cabinets provided much food for thought. The main question being: ‘how did these people manage to manufacture items so fine, so detailed? Such complicated techniques, and so long ago… 2700 hundred years!’ But also: ‘where did those gemstones come from?’ There was sapphires, emeralds, garnets and quartz. Polished pebbles, the worlds first cabochons.
To this day it’s still impossible to decide which I found more impressive, the 19th century Castellani jewelry or the 2700 year old Etruscan pieces. It’s craftsmanship to it’s perfection all over the place. The Etruscan pieces with their fine hammered sheets of gold decorated by granulation. The Castellani-made perfect micro mosaics, reinstated granulation and fine filigree work.
Both periods represent eras where human time was much less expensive than the gold that was needed for an item. Human hands were abundant, gold wasn’t. The result was hundreds, maybe thousands of hours spent on a single item, manufacturing it to be perfect. A situation we may never encounter again.
Read more on AJU
